In 2020-21, the UK left first the EU and then the 30-nation European Economic Area. Much of the impact has been masked by the coronavirus pandemic but, as that lifts, there will be profound effects on patterns of employment, national strategic positioning, political cleavages and even on the continued cohesion of the kingdom itself.

This did not have to be the case. Short of never leaving the EU, there were less disruptive exit models available. Why weren’t they taken and why did the Brexit process radicalise between 2016 and 2019?

These are the questions Christopher Grey explores in Brexit Unfolded: How No One Got What They Wanted (and Why They Were Never Going To) (Biteback, 2021). Emeritus Professor of Organisation Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, Chris Grey previously taught at Leeds, Cambridge and Warwick and is the author and co-author of nine other books. He stumbled into the Brexit debate during the referendum campaign and started writing a blog (Brexit and Beyond) that soon turned into a must-read - propelling him into the front rank of Brexitologists and earning @chrisgreybrexit 54,000 Twitter followers.

*The author's own book recommendations are Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O'Toole (Apollo, 2019) and A Question Of Loyalties by Allan Massie (Canongate Books, 2002 - first published in 1989)

Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors.

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